So who is ready to put a wrap on 2020? My guess is most of us! One thing for sure, none of us have any idea what to expect in 2021. Let’s assume it will be better but if there is one lesson we all learned, it is that the only thing we can be assured of is what is happening right now! Let’s hope we have all learned some good lessons from 2020; learned to slow down, learned to appreciate all that is good and special in our lives, learned how important our homes are and how special they can be.

 And speaking of our homes – wow – what a year 2020 was for our homes. We all rediscovered our homes, as for most of the year we spent a lot more time there. We had to work from home, cook at home, learn at home, socialize from home. Our home became our world. When the covid virus first started making the scene in February we prepared for the worst thinking it might be a repeat of the financial crisis of 2008 and for many that has sadly been the case. For us at Candelaria Design, it has been just the opposite – 2020 has been our best and busiest year ever! In fact we hit $100 million in sales of Candelaria Design Homes in 2020 and we are already designing new homes for many of these clients. Our Candelaria Design Team has really done a stellar job despite all of the required pivots and I personally want to thank all of them for staying positive and going above and beyond the call of duty! 

 So now, let’s take a look back at this crazy year and revisit the projects, events, and special moments from 2020 at Candelaria Design!

January

 We started the year with our paella dinner at Casa Candelaria. This is always a fun tradition and we brought in the new year with paella and black eyed peas thinking what an amazing year was ahead for us all…wow we had no idea what was just weeks ahead. Thanks to those who joined us and I’m still not sure what my game plan is for our 2021 New Year paella party. Stay tuned!

We also started the move into our new office expansion and I physically moved my office to the north side of the building and our Candelaria Kitchen construction was in full gear.

Our month featured projects in Salt Lake City, Durango, Co., Nashville, TN, Chalis, ID, Greensboro, NC amongst the many projects right here in Arizona.

We celebrated the completion of a beautiful project by my Partner, Architect, Meredith Thomson with a client dinner right there in their home! More to come on this project!

We attended the Gigi’s Playhouse Gala at JW Marriott at Desert Ridge in support of our good friend and client Jennifer Gage and our continued involvement and commitment to Gigi’s. Special kudos to our associate, Damon Wake, who is now on the board for his continued commitment and passion towards this amazing cause and organization. 

 We also hosted a private dinner at Taliesin West to raise funds for the Taliesin Foundation. This was a magical night and we appreciate the full support as we sold the event out. Little did we know that shortly after this event the whole Taliesin School and Foundation would part ways….unreal. Also, little did we know the Gigi’s Gala and the Taliesin dinner would be our final in-person events of the year. 

February

We started this month with a couple fun dinners at Casa Candelaria , The first was an amazing evening when our friends from Enoteca Properzio flew to the US and hosted a dinner they shipped in, prepared at our home, and then hosted an amazing wine tasting for a number of our past Candelaria Design Tour Italy travelers. Good thing we stocked up on wine before the lockdown! Then a couple weeks later we hosted a reunion dinner with our 2015 Candelaria Design Tour Italy Travelers and another with our September 2016 travelers – many made it live and the rest Zoomed in – we were zooming way ahead of what was to become the new normal.

Then on February 12th I flew to Miami for the LUXE Magazine Gold List Award Ceremony where we were awarded our Gold List award. This was such a fun event and well attended by many from the Phoenix/Scottsdale Design Community. 

Then on February 17th many from our firm attended the Phoenix Home and Garden Master of the Southwest event at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden where my wife, and Interior Designer, Isabel Dellinger-Candelaria, of Earth and Images https://www.earthandimages.com  was inducted into the Masters of the Southwest. https://www.phgmag.com/queen-of-the-castle/ featuring many of our Candelaria Design projects primarily our chic Parisian Transitional home by Project Manager, Damon Wake now featured on the Phoenix Home and Garden Virtual Home Tour https://www.phgmag.com/look-inside-a-modern-version-of-a-classic-parisian-home-in-paradise-valley/

I was proudly inducted in 2005 and so Isabel and I are now the first Masters of the Southwest couple!

We also had another fabulous feature in Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine featuring a iconic home on the Phoenix Country Club that I collaborated on with my partner Vivian Ayala. https://indd.adobe.com/view/01d75466-99f6-4694-862a-0aca80cf3017 . This amazing home was a complete restore, renovation, and remodel built by GM Hunt Builders https://gmhuntbuilders.com with landscape by Berghoff Design Group http://www.berghoffdesign.com  The interiors were all meticulously executed by the homeowner. 

We did have our Candelaria Design Napa Tour Pre-Tour Dinner at the Herb Box hoping we would be able to all go on our first tour in April. I remember from the conversation around the table that Covid was on our minds and we were all thinking we would be able to go but as we all know now our tour was indefinitely postponed…. Good thing we ordered that wine for our friends in Italy! 

March

I started March with a trip to Charleston, SC to watch my nephew, Trevor, who plays baseball for Davidson University in North Carolina, play a series in Charleston. My brother, James, and his wife, Beth, joined Isabel and I for the week. What an amazing city as I had never been. Definitely returning here – fabulous architecture and cuisine!

From there I flew to Denver for my daughter’s volleyball tournament and then Seattle to meet two sets of new clients…. And that was it – COVID 19 had struck and it was time for us to all go into lockdown which we did. We had our last collective in person Candelaria Staff meeting on Friday the 13th and went over our systems and protocols not knowing how long this would last. From then on we were all zooming. Well as I’m typing this blog we are still working from home so I am glad we prepared and were ready. 

As the month rolled on we did celebrate the arrival of twins for our associate Arland Encallado and we joined in on some exciting ground-breakings and our Candelaria Design office expansion along with our new Candelaria Design – Monogram Kitchen completed just in time for our entire team to be sequestered and working from home. So we had a new, beautiful, twice as big office and no one there!

April 

In April we went virtual as we all worked from home and began zooming with our clients and each other. Client meetings, staff meetings, even happy hours went virtual. We had to cancel our first Candelaria Design Tour Napa and went into wait and see mode for our June Spain Tour and our September Tour Italy. 

With our new Candelaria Design – Monogram demonstration kitchen completed we did do our first virtual cooking class where we made pasta with our Candelaria Collection Pasta Maker. https://www.candelariadesign.com/inspiring-living-lifestyle-1/2020/4/26/candelaria-design-pasta-making-class

We had our first of five LUXE Magazine features for the year in the March/April Issue. This was a lovely remodel/makeover of a Paradise Valley home that I collaborated with my Project Manager, Damon Wake, and Interior Designer Heather Ryan of H Ryan Studios https://www.hryanstudio.com built by Tiara Sun Development http://tiarasundev.com. 

 
We closed out April with one of our marquis Candelaria Design homes being sold to another one of our clients for $18.5 million. The sale was featured in the Wall Street Journal as one of the top sales ever in the Arizona Market….don’t worry more big Candelaria sales were to come during the year!

May

We made the cover of Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine with a beautiful estate home we designed on a hillside lot in Silverleaf  https://indd.adobe.com/view/9919e6eb-bc73-41d0-90c1-fb4a68480604 . The featured home was spearheaded by our Project Manager, Tim Mathewson, built by Schultz Development https://schultzdevelopment.org landscape design by Berghoff Design Group http://www.berghoffdesign.com, with interiors by Earth and Images https://www.earthandimages.com

June

 Principal, Vivian Ayala, had a spectacular modern home featured in the May/June Issue of LUXE Magazine https://issuu.com/sandow-media/docs/az_lx57_digital/228. This is the first of two projects Vivian would have featured in LUXE Magazine in 2020! Fabulous design and great collaboration with builder Cullum Homes https://cullumhomes.com and interiors by New York designer Jamie Drake http://drakeanderson.com/category/portfolio/.

We were also featured in Scottsdale Lifestyle Magazine https://citylifestyle.com/phoenix-az/articles/home-and-design/candelaria-designs-over-the-top-outdoor-spaces for our amazing home complete with a Cat Moat around the entire back yard built in Silverleaf by built by Schultz Development https://schultzdevelopment.org landscape design by Berghoff Design Group http://www.berghoffdesign.com, with interiors by Kimberly Colletti http://www.kimberlycolletti.com/portfolio

July

 With the Covid 19 scenario worsening and the heat of the summer I decided that if I was going to work from home I might as well find a cool place to do so and so I packed up and headed to the Pacific Northwest for the month and found a cool Mid-Century Modern AirBnB in McMinnville, Oregon in the heart of Pinot wine country. I made this my home and office for the month of July. Nice hikes through the forest in the mornings, work by day, and we even did one of our virtual cooking classes on the 4th of July. 

July also marked the completion of Season One and our 50th Podcast with a wonderful interview of my partner and fellow principal, Vivian Ayala, preceded by podcast interviews of my two other partners, Evelyn Jung, and Meredith Thomson! https://www.candelariadesign.com/inspiring-living-podcast

We also had a home we had completed ten years ago featured in Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine https://indd.adobe.com/view/a14447ec-27dd-4adc-bec4-f5a90911d64b . This Mid-Century Modern remodel on the Mountain Shadows golf course is just shy of 3000 sf. We in fact reduced the size of the home when we remodeled it! Fantastic feature and great job by our Project Manager, Tim Mathewson, and built by Eagle Luxury Properties https://eagleluxuryproperties.com.

August

With my month in Oregon completed it was time to pack up and head home but of course I managed to make a swing through Santa Barbara, CA and picked up a couple projects along the way! 

August 5th marked the announcement that one of our spec homes for Temac Development https://www.temac.com was selected to be the Winter 2020 Iconic Haus for Iconic Life Magazine https://iconiclife.com. This beautiful home created by the team of Vivian Ayala and Mat Grove would be completed by the end of November and would be the featured home on their Virtual Tour to benefit Phoenix Children’s Hospital.  https://iconichour.libsyn.com/rss

Principal, Vivian Ayala kept her LUXE Magazine streak going with another fabulous contemporary home featured in the August LUXE Magazine https://issuu.com/sandow-media/docs/az_lx58_digital/156 . This home in Mountain Shadows was built by Cullum Homes https://cullumhomes.com with interiors by IMI Design Anita Lang https://www.imidesignstudio.com.

August also marked Phase 2 of our Candelaria Design Partnership whereby I sold 48% of the company to my three partners, Vivian Ayala, Evelyn Jung and Meredith Thomson all owning 16% each. We celebrated with a signing ceremony and me fixing a celebratory dinner at the new office kitchen. 

In Mid-August we said goodbye to one of our fav architects on our staff, Peter Ekama, who had been with us for many years as his wife and family decided to move to Pennsylvania to be closer to family. We already miss Peter a ton and we wish him and his family all the best in their new endeavors.

While we said good bye to Peter we did welcome a number of new members to our team over the course of the year! We welcomed Anton Adams, Jeff Innes - who rejoined us after a few year hiatus, and Scott Marshall. We welcome them all to our Candelaria Family! Check out their bios on our Meet the Team Page

I finished August with a trip to Kansas City to begin work on a new project there. This would be our third project in the Kansas City area and our second in the community of Loch Lloyd. Isabel accompanied me and we walked to property and got down to work with an initial design and some first sketches!

September

We started September by flying off to Carmel, CA to stay with a client we are designing a home for on Camelback Mountain. Isabel and I had a little design time and a lot of cooking and fun with our clients.

We also squeezed in a few client and team dinners at our Candelaria Offices from our demonstration kitchen. We kept the numbers down and did our best to social distance but boy did we have some fun evenings. We just cannot wait to make this a standard ritual once we are on the other side of the pandemic. 

At the end of the month, my daughter, Tiffany, who also manages our social media, marketing, our podcasts, website….well you get the picture….joined me for a quick trip to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to visit my other daughter, Isabella! We rented an AirBnB and worked remotely from there for a few days, again enjoying the fresh air, great food and even a tour of a winery. 

October

 We started October with a trip to Flagstaff to check on a number of projects we have going there including work in Forrest Highlands, Flagstaff Ranch, and Pine Canyon. We finished the day with us cooking a paella dinner at a project we recently completed with Earth and Images https://www.earthandimages.com and Holdsworth Construction https://holdsworthconstruction.com  in Pine Canyon. Fantastic project headed up by Project Architect, Rebecca Roe, who also baked some amazing pies for the evening!

On October 13th I celebrated my 60th birthday with a wonderful dinner at one of my true favorites - Tarbell’s https://www.tarbells.com. The original plan was to celebrate my 60th at Villa d’Este on Lake Como  https://www.grandluxuryhotels.com/hotel/villa-d-este?cur=USD  for the grand finale of our Tour Italy but that got scrubbed due to Covid and then the back-up plan was to celebrate at Enchantment in Sedona https://www.enchantmentresort.com , but that got scrubbed too due to limitations on the size of the party and number of guests they could accommodate so Tarbell’s it was and of course they did not disappoint! So for 2021 we are shooting for a combo 50/60 Tour Italy where we will celebrate the end of my 60th year and the beginning of Isabel’s 50th! 

The very next day it was off to Seattle and the San Juan Islands to begin work on a new project there. So excited for this one! What an amazing place and definitely on my radar for my summer escape in 2021. 

The following weekend, Isabel and I spent the weekend at our client and good friend’s Phyllis and Gil Lerner’s home that Vivian and I designed in Desert Mountain built by Manship Builders. We celebrated both Gil’s and my birthdays with a lovely dinner on the patio. So fun to spend a weekend and sleep, eat, and enjoy one of our creations first hand. Thank you again Phyllis and Gil!

That same weekend I flew off to Martha’s Vineyard to meet with a client’s rep to discuss another new and exciting project. I had never been to the Vineyard and it was absolutely fantastic. 

 Later that week we were able to work in another client dinner at the Candelaria Kitchen with the project team of Earth and Images https://www.earthandimages.com and A Finer Touch Construction https://aftconstruction.com . Another fun evening and a totally cool house in the works here by Principal, Meredith Thomson, and Project Manager, Tyler Bulriss. 

Isabel and I finished the month with a nice stay at the Enchantment Resort with our clients and best of friends, Phil and Renee Giltner as we celebrated Phil’s birthday. Enchantment is always one of my favorites as I designed this marquis resort back in the mid 80’s with my former partner architect, George W. Christensen.

 October was a busy month!

 November

 November started with me cooking at a client’s home in Paradise Valley that not only was recently published and featured in LUXE Magazine but it also received a 2020 Subzero Southwest Kitchen of the Year Award. Yes, it was fun to cook in the kitchen and experience the space personally! We dined on the patio and enjoyed my Fettucine Bolagnese! Great project by my team of Vivian Ayala and Jochen Walther, builder Argue Custom Homes, interiors by Mara Green  and landscape by Refined Gardens. A video of the home is featured on the Argue Custom Homes website banner page https://arguecustomhomes.com .

Mid November it was back to Kansas City to present our conceptual plans for the project and then back to Phoenix for the opening of the Iconic Life Winter 2020 Iconic Haus https://www.candelariadesign.com/podcast-content/2020/11/27/iconic-haus-winter-2020-launch .

The following weekend it was off to Santa Barbara to begin work on two projects there, a whole house remodel with amazing views of the city and ocean beyond, and then an addition to a home we designed and completed a few years ago in Montecito. https://youtu.be/NqfEhDJLM4g

We finished November with the debut of the Candelaria Design - Temac Development Iconic Haus Winter 2020 and its Virtual Tour - https://iconichour.libsyn.com/rss.

December

 We started December with one of our amazing contemporary homes featured on the Cover of the 15 year Anniversary Issue of LUXE Magazine https://luxesource.com/all-in-materials-little-sparkle-makes-arizona-mountain-shine-schultz ! This hillside home in Paradise Valley is one of my favorites – fabulous clients and a stellar team featuring builder Schultz Development  https://schultzdevelopment.org interiors by IMI Design Anita Lang https://www.imidesignstudio.com and landscape by Greey-Pickett http://www.greeypickett.com

We also made the first LUXE Magazine cover in 2005 with a Candelaria - Schulz collaboration, and so it was a real honor to be featured again for the anniversary issue.

We could not participate in a live Phoenix Home and Garden Home Tour this year so we worked with Editor-In-Chief John Roark in putting together a Virtual Home Tour of a Parisian influenced Transitional Style Candelaria Design & Earth and Images https://www.earthandimages.com home built by Desert Star Construction https://desertstarconstruction.com. This home was a wonderful collaboration with my Project Manager, Damon Wake, and just two super fun clients! https://vimeo.com/492569322

 Phoenix Home and Garden Magazine also featured one of our most magical homes in their holiday issue. Homeowner Jane recalls, “When we were planning this house, I knew there needed to be a surprise around every corner. A home should exude happiness—and I wanted to look up and down and see something new all the time.” Click the image below to view the article and this magical home all decked out for Christmas.

We closed out the year with our Candelaria Design Virtual Holiday Party magically executed to perfection by our Director of Lasting Impressions, Janice Rantanen, and Principal, Evelyn Jung. We had dinner delivered to our team scattered across the Valley and we even pulled off a White Elephant Gift Exchange. I sure do miss our team and our time together and it surely makes us all realize how important the little things are in life that we all take for granted. 

 So many exciting projects in the works both being built and on the boards so stay tuned to an exciting 2021 from the Candelaria Design TEAM!

What a year!!!! Even with a pandemic, our Candelaria Design Team, did an absolutely amazing job setting all-time records for our company! We want to thank them all! Thank you also to our teammates out there, the builders, designers, subcontractors, vendors, realtors, everyone who contributes to the creation and construction of these amazing homes and projects. We are all truly blessed.  Happy New Year to you all and may 2021 bring everyone joy, love, happiness, prosperity and most importantly good health! See you in 2021!!!